Bill would make medical marijuana sales legal in Tennessee

NASHVILLE — A Democratic legislator has filed a bill for the upcoming
legislative session that would authorize prescription sales of
marijuana for medicinal purposes in Tennessee under somewhat stringent
regulations.

"It's just simply a matter of being rational and compassionate," said
Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, sponsor of HB1385. "It would apply to
only the most severely debilitated people ... children suffering a
hundred (epileptic) seizures a day, people on chemotherapy, people with
multiple sclerosis ... people with a plethora of diseases" who now must
either leave the state to get marijuana or make their purchases
illegally.

Tennessee allowed marijuana by prescription under state law for a
period in the 1980s, but that law was repealed, and attempts to revive
it have died in legislative committees since — most recently in 2012.
But Jones and Doak Patton, president of the National Organization for
Marijuana Legalization in Tennessee, say times might have changed in the
state because of developments on the national front.